The SABR won the Discovery Excellence Award 2018 for our SOStainer Mobile Container Clinic Project, an innovative, holistic approach to promoting and facilitating best practice in saving the lives of newborn, premature or very-low-birth-weight infants, with far-reaching implications for the well-being of children and socio-economic development.

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SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT BEGINS HERE

Since its inception in 2003, the work of the SABR has been focused on premature babies especially and the value that breastfeeding and donated breastmilk (DBM) contribute towards reducing infant mortality and morbidity at the start of the Human Development Chain. However, the health of an infant cannot be viewed in isolation. It is important to consider the broader health services that need to be made available to pregnant women and their children under five.

Since 2015, therefore, we began to expand our mandate to embrace a life-cycle approach to infant health and survival, looking at breastfeeding in the context of early childhood development and not only as a clinical solution to premature morbidity and mortality at hospital level. Ante-natal health, HIV prevention and treatment, immunisation, family planning and breastfeeding support are some of the corner-stones that support better health outcomes for children once they leave hospital after birth and return to their communities.  

The SABR has 18 years’ experience:

• Pioneering a human milk-banking model in South Africa;
• Developing breastmilk pasteurisers to minimise pathogens and maximise nutrition in local African conditions;
• Developing a sustainable and replicable, cost-recovery business model for non-profit, human milk banking;
• Developing essential systems for remote monitoring and tracking of DBM supplies using customised IT technology

In South Africa alone, 8 in 100 babies are born prematurely and 11 000 premature babies die from preventable infections and complications every year, at considerable cost to the healthcare system and with far-reaching implications for socio-economic development.

Your support will help to change a baby's future, today.